Last Wednesday morning, Italian president Romano Prodi and his minister of culture, Francesco Rutelli, unveiled a new logo and slogan for the country. The slogan reads ‘Italy leaves its mark’ and the presentation coincided with the launch of the Italy portal, www.italia.it.

There are plenty of views expressed on designer’s sites and on the whole they are negative. The attention is hardly surprising given the wide ranging views people will have surrounding how a country is represented by a symbol.

Prodi comments that Italy should have “a graphic symbol which delivers a message”. What message does the symbol portray to you? How important is a logo in determining the success of a country’s brand? Does the green shape remind you of mini golf, the shape of Italy or something else?

I came across the new logo yesterday afternoon and after a second look today I’m perched on the uninspired side of the fence. One of my main criticisms is the use of four fonts, differing weights and mixed cases. It emotes a tired, complicated and inconsistent feel. [Read more →]

P&O Cruises have launched a website dedicated to the 2008 launch of their superliner, Ventura. The site provides a virtual tour with 3D environments along with embedded presenters including the ship’s British designer, Nick Munro and chef Marco Pierre White.

I enjoyed the virtual experience and I recommend you do the same, the 3D landscapes are certainly impressive and it is easy to navigate - let’s take a look at a few screenshots and see how things work. [Read more →]

Courtesy of the thetravelprblog.com I saw this link to Christian Watson’s post entitled ‘Would You Visit These US States Based on Their Web Sites?’. Christian has attached a homepage screenshot for each fifty US states ranked ‘The Best’, ‘The Second Tier’ and ‘The Rest’. Alongside each he has a brief opinion on the designs. It’s an interesting exercise to compare the home page design and architecture of each. Jermayn Parker has done the same for Australian states. Expect to see something on the Dot Tourism blog for the UK soon.